Title of Article: Reading the Web

Resource: The Reading Teacher

Volume 68

Published on behalf of International Reading Association.

           The article I read is about how a teacher, Ms. Peters, uses technology within her second grade guided reading group. She incorporates four strategies within the text that consists of predictions, clarifying, summarizing, and creating a question. As a group, they preview the guided reading level J text called Kangaroos. Students make predictions about what they will be learning about in the text. Then they engage in clarifying discussions with the teacher regarding pronunciation and meaning of a word. At the end, the group summarizes the book and a question about the content is created. The question they created is the following: What are the different kinds of kangaroos?

After a question is created as a group with the assistance of the teacher, they move on to the search engine KidRex. It has the following three elements: title, snippet, and URL. At this point, Ms. Peters models how to use the search engine to find information about the different types of kangaroos. Together they look at the search results title words are the same as the words in their question and if the words are bold, read the snippet, and look at the URL to decide which resource to use to answer their question.

Once a link is chosen, the students use their individual iPad’s to explore the selected webpage and find information regarding their question. During this time, students are able to make text to text connections. Also, based on the format of the website Ms. Peters divides the text between the children. Finally, they create a collaborative summary of their reading and students use the Popplet app to organize their information about the three different kinds of kangaroos.

            After reading this article, I am eager to try this strategy within my guided reading groups. I am curious to explore the search engine that this teacher used along with the app. This is an interesting and exciting way to use technology within the classroom to enhance students’ knowledge on the concept being learned in class.